Chapter 37

[tip. If you continuously team kill, penalties will occur, so please be careful.]

Seo-jun read the tip and chat window as he returned to the respawn point.

“Ah. That definitely makes sense.”

-Yeah, hitting teammates is unavoidable

-When multiple people are fighting, it would be weird if they didn’t hit each other just because they’re on the same team. People might come up with strategies like using meat shields.

-But team killing is still a bit much lol

-For real, anyone can tell the enemy team is roughly red and our team is blue

He remembered The League didn’t allow team killing.

He figured this was probably due to practical reasons rather than the direction they wanted to take.

In The League, since combat mainly revolves around area-of-effect skills, having attacks hit allies would create major constraints on actions.

But For the Murim, while it has fictional martial arts techniques, most combat follows realistic mechanics, so allowing allies to get hit actually becomes a choice that captures more realism.

“But how do you revive people?”

-Just get close and do a hand-reaching motion

-An effect will appear. Then revival

-But what if they get executed?

What’s execution?

There seemed to be a lot to learn indeed.

“Should I go apologize first?”

He was almost at the respawn point when—

“Hey, you crazy bastard, you die once too!”

Someone burst out from the thick bushes nearby and pounced on Seo-jun.

Username: Heavenly First Swordsman.

The user who had been team killed by Seo-jun.

Heavenly First Swordsman’s sword swung from left to right, grazing right in front of Seo-jun’s nose.

Seo-jun instantly channeled internal energy into his feet to increase speed and barely adjusted the distance.

This required delicate control that took skill.

“How dare you dodge this master’s sword?”

Of course, it was difficult for Heavenly First Swordsman to notice such details and recognize the basic skill difference.

He was a newbie who had only started For the Murim two weeks ago.

“This master must punish you.”

And he was immersed in role play, one of the fun ways to enjoy For the Murim.

Role play refers to behavior where people adopt different personalities and settings from reality for entertainment purposes in virtual worlds, and For the Murim was a game perfectly optimized for this role play.

Whoosh!

Seo-jun bit his lip and ducked his head to avoid the opponent’s sword.

Did he bite his lip because it was hard to dodge?

No.

It was just.

“Insolent! Heavenly Demon14. Submit your neck to my sword obediently! Quickly!”

It was funny.

That sloppy speech pattern, and the word choice.

This master.

A word that was hard to hear even in his previous life.

Pft.

-Hmm. That newbie is really enjoying For the Murim, isn’t he? (nose rub)

-A proper newbie!

-LMAO I’m watching For the Murim for the first time today, have murim people been playing around like this the whole time? LOL They were having this much fun by themselves

Whoosh!

All of the enemy’s sword strikes narrowly missed, and the opponent tilted his head in confusion at this puzzling situation.

“Huh? Why aren’t any hitting?”

The role playing stopped.

Seo-jun couldn’t hold back and burst into laughter.

At this, Heavenly First Swordsman finally realized the skill difference between himself and Seo-jun and turned red in the face.

The role he’d maintained until just now had become embarrassing!

Originally, role play gets you pumped up when you win fights, but if you suffer a miserable defeat, you have to bear that much embarrassment as a risk.

“Ha, you’re pretty good. Just kill me or don’t, whatever. The game’s already tilted anyway, so I should just take a break. That’s why you team killed too, right?”

Heavenly First Swordsman looked at Seo-jun with a deflated expression.

Seo-jun stopped laughing and revealed the truth.

“Sorry. It’s my first match so I didn’t know. Same with how to revive.”

“Ha.”

Heavenly First Swordsman let out a sigh of disbelief.

You got completely wrecked by someone on their first match?

“You really fight well. You must have been good at other games.”

He considered himself quite talented.

Because he maintained an 80% win rate, though only in the beginner zone.

So when he did role play, it was really fun.

But the real deal was different.

That’s what he thought.

“Well. Fighting is my job.”

At the fact that Seo-jun killing him was a mistake and his positive reaction, he started concept playing again.

“Yes, Heavenly Demon, you are indeed special. This master is moved. Shall we go overturn this game together?”

Seo-jun almost laughed again.

And he told Heavenly First Swordsman one secret.

“Ah, but for reference, this master is currently streaming.”

While copying his speech pattern.

Heavenly First Swordsman froze instantly.

He asked in a quiet voice.

“By any chance, how many people are watching…?”

“Let’s see. The number of viewers who came to watch this master is a total of eight thousand.”

Seo-jun grinned.

It had dropped a bit.

But it was still quite a large number.

Foreign users had mainly left.

“Ah shit. Should I quit?”

He smacked his forehead.

-LMAOOO

-Forced dark history lol

-His entertainment sense is insane

-Is this a hired guest? Lol

Just as Seo-jun was getting into teasing him, a team chat was sent.

[What are you guys doing? Stop messing around and play the game!]

[Usernames Heavenly First and Heavenly Demon? Really doing all kinds of things. Are you duo queue?]

Since team chat could be seen by all team members, Heavenly First Swordsman saw this and said to Seo-jun.

“Let’s head to the center together for now. Heavenly Demon-nim. Do you know the game rules? But if you didn’t even know how to revive… you didn’t do the tutorial, right?”

Seo-jun and he headed back toward the center where soldiers were clashing.

“This master doesn’t do such things…”

“Ahhh!”

“I didn’t do the tutorial.”

“Sigh.”

“No, you were excited about it just a moment ago.”

“That was when I didn’t know 8,000 people were watching.”

While saying that, he seemed like someone who wasn’t actually that embarrassed.

“Anyway. How much do you know about territorial control?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Yes.”

Heavenly First Swordsman didn’t get angry at such a Seo-jun and began explaining calmly.

“First, the goal of territorial control is to kill all enemies.”

“But they respawn.”

“Yes. That’s exactly why you need to destroy the enemy fortress. If you die when the fortress is destroyed, you can’t revive.”

Ah.

So that’s why the fortress health was decreasing.

Seo-jun checked the current fortress health.

[Blue: 183] vs [Red: 441]

Both had been reduced, but his team’s health had been cut by a much larger margin.

“And there are many ways to reduce the enemy fortress health, but capturing control points is the most efficient. You deal big damage when capturing and also continuously damage it just by maintaining control. Besides that, you can also reduce fortress health by killing enemy soldiers or users.”

“I see.”

“Yes. And those control points marked in the distance—red means the enemy is controlling them. Blue means allies are. Purple means the other side is currently capturing the point. The central control point is especially important because it’s the only one with soldiers.”

Seo-jun surveyed the control point status.

All three were red.

-Teacher! Thank you!

-He explains well

-The overwhelming comfort compared to Assassin’s Dawn lmao. Is this what multiplayer is like?

-If it was single player, he wouldn’t have understood the rules even after 10 matches. No, he wouldn’t have played lol

“Oh. People are saying you explain well?”

“Ah, really? I guess it’s because I’m in the beginner zone, so many people who don’t know come in and I’m used to explaining.”

“I see. So to summarize, I just don’t die and kill everyone? Easy.”

“Ah…”

-LOL

-He felt his soul leave his body after explaining all that

-This guy lol doesn’t listen at all lmao

“Well, let’s go.”

Seo-jun manipulated the streaming window then stepped forward with his right foot and put weight on it. Then he applied force. Using lightness skill at maximum output, he flew toward a control point rather than the battlefield.

“Ha…”

Heavenly First Swordsman sighed behind him and followed.

[Channel point prediction starting.]

[Reversing this game.]

[Possible] vs [Impossible]

-Boss Jin! Are you finally opening betting?!

-Let’s go!

-Joseon’s Assassin, bet everything here too, got it?

-This is definitely impossible lol. If it wasn’t a mid-game join, maybe

-But he’s the streamer, you know

-The fortress is about to be destroyed. From then it’s basically sudden death.

-Yeah, he never died once in Assassin’s Dawn either.

[Point prediction closes in 1 minute.]

The central control point where soldiers were fighting was just an ordinary pavilion next to the path.

When Seo-jun entered, the red border on the ground marking the control point’s boundary turned purple.

And the gauge in the center of the control point that resembled a loading bar began filling up.

“Heavenly Demon-nim. If we wait a bit more, we’ll capture it but…”

The loading bar that had been moving smoothly stopped.

“They’re here.”

Seo-jun immediately understood what this meant and turned around.

An enemy was charging at Seo-jun from behind.

The enemy had also used lightness skill, so their speed was fast.

Clang!

Sword met sword and their gazes crossed.

Seo-jun tried to parry like in Assassin’s Dawn, but it had no effect.

Instead, Seo-jun was briefly stunned.

‘There must be a different system.’

Seo-jun was stabbed by another user’s sword that emerged from the side while in that state.

-LOL

-If you don’t know strong attacks you’re screwed

-This is why I bet on impossible~ Patriotic bettors, scared?

“Hey, kill him quick!”

Seeing another user emerge from the side, Heavenly First Swordsman tried to protect Seo-jun, but yet another user appeared to stop him.

“Be careful, Heavenly Demon-nim!”

Three enemies total had appeared at the central control point.

Seo-jun put slight force into his feet as soon as he recovered from the stun.

‘From now on I’ll dodge everything instead of deflecting.’

The downward strike from user Manryang’s sword barely cut Seo-jun’s bangs.

The moment Manryang saw the opponent’s short hair tips get cut and flutter down, he met Seo-jun’s eyes.

And for just an instant, he felt an inexplicable chill he couldn’t recognize.

He couldn’t read any panic, fear, or emotions that should normally be shown.

“I can’t lose on my first match.”

Seo-jun’s mouth opened.

And.

A sword thrust toward Manryang’s throat with a whoosh.

Schlick!

The fact that he had barely dodged the enemy’s sword meant the enemy was also within his range.

Manryang, who hadn’t escaped the beginner zone yet, allowed the hit but burned with fighting spirit.

There’s still plenty of health left!

His duo partner Cheonryang positioned himself on the opposite side with Seo-jun in the middle and helped him.

“Let’s kill this guy quick and go teach that this master-talking guy a lesson.”

“Yeah. If we just kill these guys now, we can easily finish this match!”

Clang clang!

But.

Why won’t he go down?

Manryang looked at his teammate who was gritting his teeth with a bewildered expression from the opposite side.

In just one minute, his teammate’s HP had been reduced by more than half.

In contrast, the enemy hadn’t allowed a single attack since that first hit.

“Hey, we’re running out of time.”

“You try fighting better!”

“You fight better!”

The problem was.

If just a little more time passed, the berserk state would activate.

Berserk state was triggered when the gauge filled up from fighting multiple opponents alone.

A user in berserk state temporarily gained a shield and movement speed, and stamina and internal energy needed for lightness skill became unlimited.

Even now he was just barely grazing them, but if he entered berserk state too?

“Damn it! Quick! You come attack too!”

“Sorry, Heavenly Demon-nim! I lost!”

-The gauge is almost full lol

-In berserk state he’ll kill them all instantly and have plenty left over. Having unlimited stamina alone is huge.

-Let’s go for the comeback! Patriotic betting victory!

Seo-jun checked the chat while dodging the 2-on-1 attacks and was able to pick up on the reason for the enemies’ impatience.

Looking back, Heavenly First Swordsman had been defeated in the 1-on-1 and was lying down, and the enemy who had been facing him was also joining Seo-jun’s side.

In the urgent 3-on-1 situation, Seo-jun had a different idle thought.

‘What’s patriotic betting anyway?’

From the atmosphere, it seemed like people who bet on him winning were patriots and people who bet on him losing were traitors.

‘Anyway. So internal energy becomes unlimited?’

When the gauge filled up, he could feel his movement speed increase.

Seo-jun grinned and declared.

“From now on, this master will show you why I’m called Heavenly Demon.”

A groan could be heard from Heavenly First Swordsman lying behind him.

“Ah…”

It definitely wasn’t a groan of admiration.